Chicago Public Schools leaders unveil plan to close $734 million budget deficit

CBS News

3 days ago

Chicago Public Schools leaders on Wednesday unveiled their plan to overcome a $734 million budget shortfall for the upcoming school year.
The district's $10.25 billion spending plan calls for cutting meal prep staff, crossing guards, janitorial workers, and central office staffers, while leaving classroom jobs largely untouched.
In June, CPS officials announced 161 layoffs and the elimination of more than 200 vacant positions among its central office and citywide staff, including dozens of crossing guards.
Weeks later, CPS announced more than 1,400 other layoffs, including 432 teachers and 132 special education teachers – representing 1.8% of the teaching force – along with 311 paraprofessionals and 677 special education classroom assistants. District officials said most of those laid off staffers likely will be rehired for vacant positions at other schools.
The district also has said it is cutting ties with private custodial contractors, sending layoff notices to more than 1,200 custodians. CPS plans to rehire 750 of those custodians directly as district staff.
Interim CPS chief executive officer Macquline King's budget proposal also rejects Mayor Brandon Johnson's preference for a high-interest short-term loan to help balance the books.
The district's budget plan would reimburse the city for a $175 million pension payment toward the municipal pension fund, which covers non-teaching staff at CPS, but only if the district receives additional state funding, TIF surplus revenue, or other new funds from the city or state.
CPS is banking on $379 million in TIF surplus – tax money raised for revitalizing blighted areas – about $79 million more than it got last year after Johnson declared a record $570 million TIF surplus for Chicago. But that funding will require City Council approval, and some school board members raised immediate red flags concerning the district's plan to bank on that money.
"In what political reality world do we believe that a City Council that does not like to give up their TIF money anyway, that we're going to get 26 votes to give us $379 million," school board member Jitu Brown said.
School board member Michilla Blaise said it's risky to assume the City Council would approve the TIF surplus the district is seeking without a guarantee CPS will make the municipal pension payment.
"This just feels like bizarroland to me. These are our employees, this is their pension payment," Blaise said.
The proposed budget, which requires school board approval, also does not include a $300 million high-interest loan Mayor Brandon Johnson pressed for. That was part of the reason he orchestrated the firing of former CPS CEO Pedro Martinez, pressure that also led to every member of the prior school board to resign.
"It's held the line on the pressure campaign from City Hall," said Joe Ferguson, president of the Civic Federation, a nonpartisan government fiscal watchdog.
Ferguson said it's a credit to King, the mayor's handpicked interim CPS CEO, for resisting the mayor's pressure to take out that loan.
"If she wants this job permanently, she has made hard decisions that aren't be happy ones for the people who will decide whether she gets the job permanently. So, a profile in courage, at least to this extent," he said.
Ferguson gave the proposed budget a "B" grade, and said most CPS families will feel cuts on the margins, but not where it matters most: in the classroom.
"Most people can rest assured that the thing they send their children to school for has been protected here," he said.
Public hearings on the district's budget plan begin next week, when classes also begin for CPS students. The school board must approve a budget plan for the 2025-26 school year by Aug. 28, and school board members acknowledged the district's spending plan could be changed before a vote.